College Offers New Online IT Certificate Program

For Release - June 30, 2009

The University of New Mexico-Gallup will be offering an online Information Technology degree this fall. The program will target high school seniors and employed adult learners in the surrounding service areas of New Mexico and Arizona. The online certificate is designed to prepare students for entry-level employment in computerized environments.

“For students who are just out of high school and are not sure what they want to do, this is a great opportunity to be fully online, to take classes at their leisure and determine what they really want to do,” said Coleen Arviso, training and development consultant, who with instructor Kathy Larason put the program together.  “By the time they’re done with the certificate, they’ll know if they like this field of work and if they want to continue on to get a degree.”

The course work is designed to be accessible using UNM’s WebCT and e-textbooks transfer methods.

In addition to the General Education requirements of English and Math, students will take the following courses: How To Take An Online Course, Human Relations in Business, Computing for Business Students, Computer Programming Fundamentals, Web Page Design I, Microcomputer Operating Systems, Introduction to Hardware Installation and Computer Networking for a total of 31 credits.

Those who are interested in taking the course should have access to a computer with a Windows XP operating system and access to at least dial-up Internet.

For those students who do not have computers, Arviso said that the college will be offering netbooks in the fall in the bookstore. Netbooks are less expensive computers designed for wireless communication and access to the Internet for the purposes of web browsing and e-mailing. Arviso said they should be available for around $350 in the bookstore, and will have such features as webcams and wireless access capability.

Call the Business Technology Department at 505.863.7511 for more information.

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